In The Future With Christian Bale

Christian Bale is one of the few actors at the minute who can do no wrong. The critics adore him, the internet fanboys love him and audiences are willing to show up to watch his films (well his mainstream ones, at least).

Since hitting the big time with Batman Begins, Bale has been much in demand as an actor; Entertainment Weekly conducted a great interview with the actor where he discusses his upcoming films: Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, the new Terminator 4 film (whatever it may end up being called), and his third stint as Batman (which I hope will be called Shadow Of The Bat).

Continue on to find out what he has to say about his future slate.

When Bale was asked if he’d return to make a third Batman (technically the seventh since 1989) he said:

“No, no, no, no, no. [Smiling] Part 3 is what I’d consider it, yeah, I don’t say part 7. ‘Batman Begins’ – that was the beginning there, with all due respect to the others. We are re-creating this. You know, obviously the decision is out of my hands. I would, knowing the ‘Dark Knight’ story, I would like very much to complete a trilogy. And I think that knowing the story of ‘The Dark Knight’, it leaves you anticipating something that really can get very, very interesting for a third. Now, the question would be: Is Chris going to be doing it? Because to me I find it tricky to imagine working on it without it being a collaboration with Chris.”

When probed about Heath Ledger’s tragic death Bale went on to say:

“I’m absolutely fine talking about him. You know, I don’t like kind of trivializing the tragedy in conjunction with an interview to do with the movie, which is clearly far less important. But Heath was a joy. He really was like that, because he was a very unique man. I enjoyed watching him work, working with him.”

As cool as Batman is, at the minute everyone wants to know about Bale’s involvement with the new Terminator film. When questioned about the Sci-Fi franchise Bale said:

“There are some wonderful people who have been brought in, and we are working to re-create that world.We’re in the process of (writing the script), we’re working on that, et cetera.”

When pressed on a start date for the film, the future John Connor went on to say:

“It’s important to make sure that you start a movie when you’re ready, instead of just starting it on a date, regardless. And so we’ll start when we’re ready.”

So it looks like the start date for filming isn’t for a while, and reading between the lines it would appear that Bale is holding out for either script rewrites or a final draft. Let’s just hope that it’s good and that it doesn’t ruin the mythology created by the first two films.

Next up for Bale is Michael Mann’s Public Enemies which co-stars Johnny Depp. Bale stated that he starts filming next week and that he loves doing the research and working with Michael Mann.

Towards the end of the interview he also says that he’s looking to work again with The Machinist director Brad Anderson and 3.10 To Yuma director James Mangold (could it be Cyclops? I doubt it, but it’s good to speculate).

Those are Bale’s future plans for a while, and it seems like he’s sticking with Batman for the next few years… maybe just long enough to make Batman vs Superman.